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MCBRIDE 

LIFE  AND  HEALTH  OF  OUR  GIRLS 
IN  RELATION  TO  THEIR  FUTURE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


The  Life  and  Health  of  Our  Girls 
in  Relation  to  Their  Future. 


James  H.  McBride,  M.D. 
Los  Angeles,  Cal. 


Reprinted  from 

BULLETIN  OP  TUB  AMERICAN  ACADEMY 
OF  MEDICINE.     VOL.  VI.    No.  8. 


TTS 

M  a  I 


THE  LIFE  AND   HEALTH   OF  OUR  GIRLS   IN  RELA- 
TION TO  THEIR  FUTURE.1 

By  JAMES  H.  MCBRIDE,  M.D.,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

The  first  need  of  life  is  a  good  physique.  Whether  one's 
work  is  in  the  field,  or  the  college,  or  the  home,  healh£,  vigor, 
and  endurance  determine  the  amount  and  quality  of  it.  What- 
ever a  few  sickly  geniuses  may  have  accomplished,  the  average 
man  or  woman  needs  the  physical  capital  of  a  sound  body. 

Though  the  world's  work  is  increasingly  mental  work,  the 
tests  of  efficiency  being  more  and  more  mental  tests,  there  was 
never  a  time  when  physical  robustness  counted  for  more  than  at 
the  present  day. 

The  mind  has  had  exclusive  attention  in  systems  of  education. 
They  have  dealt  with  nothing  but  the  intellect.  We  are  now  be- 
ginning to  recognize  the  importance  of  the  body  in  the  intellec- 
tual scheme,  and  of  the  brain  in  relation  to  the  body,  and  of  the 
mind  as  the  supreme  function  of  the  body. 

Life  is  a  conflict,  and  its  vigor,  harmony,  and  achievement 
come  of  this.  Agencies  within  the  body  and  without  are  work- 
ing against  survival  and  tend  to  lessen  life  or  destroy  it.  If  the 
defenses  of  the  body  against  disease  were  abandoned  for  a  day,  we 
should  die.  Our  destruction  would  also  be  certain,  though 
slower,  if  the  higher  contests  of  life  were  abated.  Conflict  is  the 
price  of  existence.  Life  of  the  right  sort  consists  in  doing  things, 
in  overcoming.  This  requires  robust  qualities  of  mind  and  body, 
and  these  express  the  energy  that  days  and  years  have  developed 
and  compacted  into  structure.  From  childhood  to  maturity  we 
are  determining  the  quality  of  health  and  character.  At  every 
stage  of  life  we  are  what  our  past  has  made  us. 

The  brain  is  the  organ  of  thought,  but  the  entire  body  is  con- 
cerned in  the  mental  functions.  This  is  so  because  at  every  step 
in  the  evolution  of  the  organism  from  lower  life,  with  every  addi- 
tion to  the  nervous  mechanism,  there  were  corresponding  new 
connections  of  brain  and  body  in  ever-increasing  complexity. 
All  ages  of  life  have  gone  to  this.  All  relations,  all  experiences, 

1  Read  before  the  American  Academy  of  Medicine,  Washington,  D.  C.,  May  n,  1903. 


all  conflicts,  tragedies,  triumphs,  and  failures,  all  su  rvivals  of  in 
dividuals  and  of  function  went  to  the  making  of  these  relations 
that  life  exhibits. 

The  interdependence  of  brain  and  body  is  a  primary  fact  of 
life,  and  a  commonplace  of  physiologic  psychology.  The 
solidarity  of  the  organism  is  shown  in  the  relation  between  the 
size  of  the  heart  and  brain.  It  is  not  probable  that  any  part  of 
the  body  functionates  without  influencing  the  brain.  If  a  limb  is 
amputated  in  early  life,  the  nerve  cells  of  the  center  controlling  it 
will  not  develop  well.  If  the  muscles  of  one  arm  are  developed 
by  exercise,  the  other  arm  grows  stronger.  If  one  hand  gains  in 
skill  by  special  exercise,  the  other  gains  in  a  regular  and  meas- 
urable proportion.  Mosso  has  shown  that  during  mental  effort 
blood  leaves  the  extremities  and  flows  toward  the  brain.  We 
seem  to  think  to  our  finger  ends. 

The  one  thing  more  than  any  other  that  has  dominated  man's 
life  and  made  him  what  he  is,  is  action.  The  results  of  action 
were  woven  into  the  fabric  of  man's  brain  by  the  experiences  of 
countless  generations  of  ancestors.  In  the  primitive  man,  thought 
always  expressed  action  ;  it  was  out  of  the  necessities  of  action  that 
thought  came  into  existence.  Our  thinking  has  in  it  a  muscular 
or  motor  element.  It  recapitulates  those  primitive  motor  co-ordi- 
nations that  were  in  the  making  of  it. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  athlete's  actions  are  the  ex- 
pression of  his  thoughts.  The  connection  is  familiar.  It  is  a  like 
truth  and  a  larger  one  that  all  thinking,  even  the  reasoning  of 
the  philosopher,  has  in  it  a  subconscious  rehearsal  of  old  motor 
associations,  through  which  thought  came  into  existence  ;  ances- 
tors laid  the  foundation  in  their  motor  thinking  for  all  the  fine 
reasoning  of  their  wise  and  spectacled  descendant.  In  the  primi- 
tive man  the  motor  relationships  of  thought  were  simpler  ;  in  the 
more  highly  developed,  height  upon  height  has  been  reared  for 
more  complex  reasoning,  and  yet  the  motor  element  is  still  there, 
though  it  is  veiled  and  takes  place  in  invisible  physiologic  panto- 
mime. Stanley  Hall  says,  "  We  think  in  terms  of  muscular  ac- 
tion." With  all  mental  processes  there  is  this  motor  filiation,  and 
as  thought  succeeds  thought  a  thousand  actions  of  the  body  are 
gone  through  with  in  physiologic  shorthand. 


An  educational  system  should  have  two  main  objects  :  First,  to 
make  a  sound  and  healthy  body  ;  second,  the  formation  of  char- 
acter through  mental  and  moral  discipline.  As  all  character 
comes  of  moral  experiment,  so  the  efficient  body  comes  of  experi- 
ment in  doing  things,  in  all  possible  discipline  that  gives  the  body 
strength,  symmetry,  poise. 

The  Greeks  were  wiser  than  we.  They  saw  that  the  proper 
foundation  for  mental  training  was  training  of  the  body.  In  our 
system  of  education  we  have  heretofore  worked  at  the  top  and 
neglected  the  foundation.  In  our  strenuous  preoccupation  with 
the  mind  we  have  forgotten  the  body. 

Dr.  D.  A.  Sargent,  of  Harvard,  says  concerning  the  neglect 
of  physical  training  in  our  public  schools  :  "  There  is  not  a  sin- 
gle exercise  in  the  school  curriculum  that  requires  them  to  lift 
their  hands  above  their  heads,  or  to  use  their  hands  and  fingers, 
except  to  turn  a  page  or  thumb  a  piece  of  chalk."  Again  he 
sa5rs  :  "  Under  such  conditions,  with  no  attempt  made  at  classi- 
fication according  to  physical  needs,  with  every  one  doing  the 
same  thing  without  any  moral  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  without  hope  of  approval  or  reward  on  the  part  of  the 
pupil,  without  even  the  inspiring  strains  of  music  to  relieve  the 
monotony,  our  public-school  children  are  put  through  what  some 
persons  choose  to  call  educational  gymnastics."1 

There  are  evidences  of  an  awakening  interest  in  this  country  in 
the  physical  side  of  child  life.  Gymnasiums  are  now  in  use  in 
the  public  schools  in  a  number  of  our  cities,  though  relatively  the 
number  is  small.  It  is  a  most  gratifying  sign  also  that  our  col- 
leges and  universities  have  gymnasiums  with  skilled  directors, 
and,  in  the  colleges  for  young  women,  special  attention  is  now  di- 
rected to  the  physical  development  of  the  students. 

The  proportion  of  young  people  who  go  to  colleges  and  univer- 
sities is,  however,  a  mere  fraction.  The  vast  majority  of  our 
young  people  never  go  even  to  a  high  school,  nor  is  anything 
whatever  done  with  a  view  to  physical  development.  We  leave 
their  bodies  to  the  caprices  of  natural  activity  and  the  chances  of 
occupation.  Much  of  those  old  constructive  forces  that  belonged 
to  the  virile  life  of  primitive  man,  forces  that  were  packed  into 

1  American  Physical  Educational  Review,  March,  1900. 


every  fiber  by  ages  of  harsh  experience,  that  were  majestic  in 
their  power  and  still  potential  in  every  child  as  a  splendid  physi- 
cal capital,  are  not  utilized  by  our  methods. 

In  regard  to  the  life  of  young  women,  we  are  liable  to  be  mis- 
led into  thinking  that  more  of  them  have  an  interest  in  outdoor 
life  and  sports  than  is  the  case.  The  young  women  who  play 
golf  and  tennis  are  relatively  conspicuous,  and  when  we  see  them 
we  congratulate  ourselves  and  are  inclined  to  brag  a  little  be- 
cause of  the  growing  fondness  of  young  women  for  outdoor  life. 
We  forget  their  obscure  sisters,  the  great  majority  of  girls  and 
young  women  who  rarely  or  never  play  tennis  or  basket-ball  or 
golf.  Those  who  engage  in  these  or  any  outdoor  sports  are  a 
mere  fraction  of  the  total  number.  Unfortunately  these  latter,  in 
common  with  the  others,  almost  universally  wear  the  conventional 
style  of  dress,  that  is,  they  compress  their  bodies  with  unyielding 
garments,  and  they  will,  of  course,  have  the  usual  proportion  of 
weak  muscles  and  displaced  organs. 

Physicians  alone  know  how  much  misery  is  caused  by  the  un- 
hygienic dress  of  women.  That  all  protests  have  in  the  past  been 
fruitless  might  easily  have  been  foreseen.  It  took  epidemics  that 
killed  their  thousand,  not  sermons  on  hygiene,  to  make  men  es- 
tablish quarantine.  Health  regulations  have  rarely  been  adopted 
because  of  instruction  in  hygiene, — they  have  been  enforced  by 
the  necessity  of  self-protection.  The  promise  of  better  health  for 
women  from  proper  dress  is  quite  vague.  The  classes  who  illus- 
trate the  advantages  of  it  are  not  models  of  form  and  graceful- 
ness, while  the  appeal  of  fashion  and  the  desire  to  conform  and 
please  come  of  a  normal  and  wholesome  instinct.  It  is  not  proba- 
ble that  women  will  be  greatly  influenced  in  their  dress  by  any 
appeals  made  on  the  ground  of  health  or  comfort.  Hygienic 
dress  for  women  will  come  as  they  discover  that  in  their  new 
competition  with  men,  just  now  beginning,  they  will  fall  short  of 
the  best  possible  success  to  the  degree  that  they  lack  the  staying 
qualities  that  men  have.  They  will  then  adopt  hygienic  dress 
from  necessity. 

The  worst  feature  of  woman's  dress  is  the  corset.  The  fol- 
lowing is  a  hint  of  what  it  means  in  the  life  of  women  :  In  an 


Eastern  college1  for  young  women,  there  were  35  in  the  gradua- 
ting class.  Of  these,  19  dressed  after  hygienic  models  and  wore 
no  corsets  ;  16  dressed  in  the  usual  style.  Eighteen  of  the  class 
took  honors — of  these  13  wore  no  corsets.  Of  the  seven  who  were 
chosen  for  Commencement  parts,  six  wore  no  corsets.  Of  those 
who  carried  off  prizes  for  essays  during  the  year,  none  wore  cor- 
sets. Of  the  five  chosen  for  class-day  orators,  four  wore  no  cor- 
sets. Query  :  If  the  wearing  of  a  single  style  of  dress  will  make 
this  difference  in  the  lives  of  young  women,  and  that,  too,  in  their 
most  vigorous  and  resistive  period,  how  much  difference  will  a 
score  of  unhealthy  habits  make,  if  persisted  in  for  a  lifetime  ? 

The  vital  capital  of  a  generation  depends  primarily  upon  what 
the  parents  transmit.  A  sound  constitution  may  be  wrecked  by 
abuse  and  the  offspring  be  thereby  affected  unfavorably.  The  bodily 
vigor  of  the  parent,  which  is  largely  under  individual  control,  in- 
fluences offspring  quite  as  much  as  the  inborn  parental  qualities 
that  are  inheritable.  The  first  demand  of  parenthood  is  health. 
A  strong  and  robust  body  may  battle  successfully  against  a  bad 
heredity.  If  men  and  women  would  live  as  they  ought  to  live 
for  a  few  generations,  half  the  morbid  heredity  would  be  elimina- 
ted. This  is  a  capital  fact  in  the  possible  improvement  of  the 
race.  The  effort  of  society  should  be  to  make  men  and  women  of 
this  day  physically  sound,  and  ultimately  make  the  race  so. 
Heredity,  which  is  the  most  important  single  factor  of  life,  would 
then  always  work  toward  racial  betterment.  As  it  is  now,  if  all 
disease  and  crime  were  swept  away,  mankind  is  living  so  badly 
that  the  crop  of  the  diseased  and  criminal  would  soon  be  large 
again.  The  inheritance  of  both  health  and  disease  has  generally 
had  obscure  beginnings  in  far-off  relationships.  The  insanity  of 
to-day  is  in  its  genesis  largely  an  affair  of  the  previous  generation 
and  others  farther  back.  Influences  that  weakened  the  vital  re- 
sistances of  ancestors  sent  into  the  world  unstable  brains  that 
were  unequal  to  the  adverse  conditions  of  life.  The  heredity  of 
each  one  is  complex  and  infinite.  Ages  upon  ageaof  human  expe- 
riences, with  their  strength  and  their  weakness,  are  packed  into  our 
bodies.  They  act  and  think  and  speak  in  us.  We  are  children  of 
thousands  of  ancestors  whose  multiplied  lives  reach  back  across 

1  Dr.  Lucy  M.  Hall  in  Outlook. 


the  centuries.     In  the  deeper,  physiologic  sense  the  race  inheri- 
tance is  the  larger. 

The  common  impression  that  play  develops  the  body  suffi- 
ciently is  an  error.  Play  is  the  natural  language  of  the  growing 
body,  and  is  vitally  important  to  children.  It  has  the  advantage 
of  furnishing  the  greatest  amount  of  exercise  with  the  least  ex- 
penditure of  mental  effort.  It  appeals  especially  to  the  automa- 
tisms, and  so  while  it  exercises,  it  diverts  and  rests.  Play,  how- 
ever, does  not  supply  all  the  training  that  is  demanded.  Neither 
does  work.  Work  is  excellent,  not  alone  because  it  does  in  some 
measure  promote  development,  but  because  it  has  in  it  a  moral 
discipline.  It  cannot  supply  alone  a  certain  kind  of  discipline 
that  is  needed.  The  gymnasium  of  the  garden  and  field  has 
helped  to  give  robustness  to  generations,  but  it  develops  the  body 
unequally.  Neither  does  it  supply  the  finer  and  more  accurate 
muscular  adjustments,  with  the  associated  mental  drill  that 
special  training  supplies.  Life  demands  this  special  training 
more  and  more  as  social  organization  increases  in  complexity, 
both  in  its  intellectual  and  industrial  relations.  There  is  no  more 
profitable  drill  than  that  which  is  obtained  in  this  way.  Atten- 
tion, alertness,  interest,  courage,  quickness  of  decision,  the  larger 
forces  of  character  are  here  being  made  in  the  individual  as  by  a 
ruder  training  they  were  made  in  the  race. 

Awkwardness,  lack  of  skill  in  doing  things  is  waste.  Accuracy, 
ease,  gracefulness  are  economies.  Special  training  of  the  body 
brings  the  power  of  self-control  in  action — an  important  matter 
in  character-making.  To  do  things  speedily  and  accurately,  to 
do  them  in  one  way  and  that  the  best,  this  is  self-control  of  a 
high  order.  Self-control  does  not  consist  in  keeping  still.  It 
consists  in  that  wise  self-direction  that  men  of  action  show,  and 
that  makes  their  lives  significant. 

No  girl  should  be  allowed  to  grow  up  without  special  physical 
training.  This  should  be  supplied  when  the  body  is  growing  and 
the  physiologic  habits  are  being  established.  If  the  body  is  not 
made  strong  and  is  not  well  developed  before  20,  it  will  not  be 
after  that  time.  The  size  of  the  muscles  is  determined  during  the 
growing  period,  as  is  the  skill  in  using  them.  Special  exercise 


in  later  life  may  develop  temporarily  neglected  muscles,  but 
as  soon  as  the  exercises  are  abandoned  they  will  return  to 
their  former  size.  If  they  are  well  developed  during  the  growing 
period,  the  larger  size  is  a  permanency,  and  the  vigor  that  goes 
with  this  means  not  only  physical  capital,  but  a  mental  resource. 

There  is  no  more  important  fact  relative  to  the  life-work  than 
that  all  activities  of  the  body  tend  to  develop  the  brain  and  the 
mental  power  as  well.  Child  play  and  games,  the  romp  and  frolic 
of  boys  and  girls,  and  all  games  of  skill  involve  those  primary  co- 
ordinations that  are  racial  in  origin,  and  that  are  a  preparation  for 
the  higher  and  more  complex  co-ordinations  of  later  life.  Every 
game  well  learned,  every  kind  of  work  involving  skill  that  is  well 
mastered,  means  new  brain  structure  brought  into  activity  that 
serves  as  a  foundation  for  mental  acquisition  later.  Every  game 
that  a  boy  learns  makes  a  smarter  boy  of  him  if  he  utilizes  the 
skill  for  the  best  purposes.  Girls  need  not  play  all  the  games 
that  boys  do,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be  as 
robust  as  boys,  and  no  reason  why  they  should  not  have  the  phys- 
ical training  that  makes  strong  bodies. 

I  am  now  directing  the  physical  training  of  a  little  girl  of  12. 
She  is  most  active  and  has  never  been  seriously  ill.  Her  tastes 
are  for  outdoor  life,  and  they  have  been  encouraged.  She  climbs 
trees,  runs  over  the  hills,  hunts  flowers  and  insects,  studies  birds 
and  loves  nature.  She  is  thoroughly  healthy  in  mind  and  body. 
When  I  examined  her  at  1 1  years  of  age,  I  found  her  trunk  and 
arm  muscles  were  mere  bands.  They  were  certainly  a  poor  re- 
port of  her  activities.  She  is  now  taking  systematic  training. 
She  does  not  inherit  large  muscles,  and  there  will  be  no  attempt 
to  make  an  athlete  of  her.  To  do  this  would  be  to  rob  other 
parts  of  the  body.  What  she  needs  is  compactness  and  solidity 
with  moderate  size  and  a  certain  skilfulness.  Her  life  history 
will  be  practically  determined  by  what  is  done  with  her  body 
during  the  next  five  years.  One  could  easily  write  a  prescription 
for  early  invalidism  in  this  child,  and  have  it  filled  in  thousands 
of  homes  of  the  land.  Have  her  wear  the  conventional  dress, 
crowd  her  in  school  and  college  and  neglect  her  physical  develop- . 
ment,  and  at  twenty  we  have  the  tragedy. 


8 

The  physical  development  of  girls  is  not  so  simple  a  matter  as 
that  of  boys,  for  the  girl's  body  is  more  complex  and  the  develop- 
ment period  has  more  risks  in  it.  An  inactive  life  is  quite  as  bad 
for  the  girl  as  for  the  boy,  and  overstudy  or  stress  of  any  kind  is 
more  serious  in  its  consequences  for  the  growing  girl.  Girls  learn 
quite  as  fast  as  boys,  or  even  faster,  and  the  effects  of  overstudy 
are  often  not  apparent  until  after  they  have  left  school.  The 
phrase  "overstudy"  is  often  misused.  If  adults  and  children 
work  under  proper  conditions  they  are  rarely  injured  by  any 
amount  of  mental  labor.  If  men  who  work  with  their  brains 
and  students  who  apply  their  minds  intensely  would  take  proper 
rest,  food  and  exercise,  there  would  be  no  danger  of  overwork- 
ing. When  people  thus  engaged  break  down  in  health  they 
should  charge  their  failure  to  a  neglect  of  the  essentials  of  healthy 
living.  Many  young  women  injure  their  health  in  school  not 
because  they  study  too  hard,  but  because  they  fail  to  observe  a 
few  simple  laws  of  health  that  could  be  summarized  in  a  page. 

A  girl  of  twelve  coming  under  my  observation  studied  hard  at 
school  and  became  morbidly  anxious  about  her  studies.  She 
slept  little,  had  almost  constant  headache,  no  appetite,  was  blood- 
less, emaciated  and  poorly  developed.  She  was  ordered  from 
school  for  three  months,  and  was  required  to  play  outdoor  games 
and  take  much  exercise.  When  school  was  resumed,  her  exercise 
and  general  hygiene  were  carefully  directed.  In  six  months  she 
was  strong  and  without  an  ailment,  and  now,  four  years  after- 
wards, she  is  in  perfect  health,  though  she  has  not  missed  a  day 
from  school.  The  result  showed  that  she  had  not  studied  too 
hard,  but  that  her  physical  development  had  been  neglected. 

The  student  girl  should  take  active  outdoor  exercise  every  day 
under  proper  conditions  of  dress.  Girls  are  liable  to  overdo  at 
outdoor  exercise  and  at  gymnastics.  This  is  especially  liable  to 
be  the  case  with  those  who  need  exercise  most.  Intelligent 
direction  is  necessary  for  most  of  them.  Mothers  who  are  fearful 
their  daughters  will  break  down  from  overstudy  need  have  no 
fears  if  the  young  women  care  for  their  physical  life.  Systematic 
and  persistent  exercise  out  doors  will  usually  insure  good  health 
for  girls  and  young  women  who  are  studying.  A  few  weeks  or 


months  of  outdoor  life  or  of  active  training  is  not  sufficient. 
This  would  be  a  parody  on  what  should  be  a  life  habit,  as  much 
as  eating  and  sleeping.  Plato  provided  that  two  years  out  of  the 
three  from  seventeen  to  twenty — certainly,  the  best  years  for 
study — should  be  entirely  devoted  to  the  gymnasium. 

Plato  had  limitations  in  his  experience,  for  he  had  never  ridden 
on  a  fast  train,  nor  talked  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  nor 
searched  for  God's  stars  through  modern  smoke,  but  he  knew  the 
secret  of  health  and  the  real  source  of  man's  power.  He  looked 
to  the  triumph  of  life,  not  to  the  petty  victory  of  examination 
day. 

We  of  ten  hear  it  said  that  woman's  organization  is  more  delicate 
than  man's,  but  this  delicacy  is  partly  if  not  wholly  the  work  of 
civilization.  Centuries  of  repression  and  hindrance,  of  hobbling 
and  swaddling  have  gone  to  the  making  of  her  physical  frailty, 
what  there  is  of  it.  We  admire  the  frail  type  of  beauty  with 
its  appealing  suggestions  of  dependence.  The  Amazonian 
mother  whose  hardy  progeny  will  be  the  captains  of  the  next 
generation  draws  no  eye.  Considering  that  civilization  tends  to 
refine  away  feminine  vigor,  and  that  there  are  yet  many  women 
who  are  physically  strong,  shows  what  miracles  nature  can  work, 
and  it  certainly  is  a  prophecy  for  racial  betterment.  In  the  wild 
state  woman  shows  no  serious  physical  frailty.  She  carries  the 
burdens  of  the  tribe,  and  her  fiber  is  as  tough  as  that  of  man. 
We  need  have  no  fear  of  the  fate  of  the  race  if  the  living  are  kept 
healthy.  Here  as  elsewhere,  quality  is  more  important  than  quan- 
tity. Through  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  there  comes 
ultimately  the  survival  of  the  best.  In  nature's  large  economy,  it 
is  surely  true  that  the  race  that  becomes  extinct  deserves  its  fate. 

The  building  of  a  strong  body  with  the  establishment  of  good 
health  means  to  achieve  that  which  runs  through  all  normal  life( 
good  physiologic  habit.  All  life  is,  in  last  analysis,  habit ;  there 
are  not  only  habits  of  mind,  but  habits  of  body  over  which  we  have 
but  indirect  control.  The  functional  life  of  any  organ  tends  to 
repeat  itself,  and  this  repetition  is  habit.  If  by  a  wise  way  of 
living  one  has  established  the  best  possible  functional  life  in  the 
organs,  this  becomes  the  standard  for  the  body  and  the  energies 


10 

are  on  a  level  with  the  physiologic  habits  that  have  thus  been 
formed. 

Doctors  know  how  easy  it  is  to  set  up  morbid,  grumbling 
habits  in  some  organ  or  organs,  that  may  continue  for  years  or 
even  a  lifetime.  Every  part  of  the  body  has  a  certain  capacity  to 
resist  disease  or  unfavorable. conditions,  and  if  this  resistance  is 
once  broken  down  by  some  neglect  or  disorder  of  any  particular 
organ,  the  vital  capacity  of  that  part  is  ever  after  of  an  imperfect 
kind.  Half  our  work  as  doctors  is  in  treating  disorders  that  are 
the  result  of  some  part  of  the  system  having  been  injured  by 
sickness  or  neglect,  and  which  ever  after  is  an  invalid  organ, 
drawing  a  heavy  pension  from  the  system  for  its  disability. 

The  systematic  physical  activity  and  the  good  personal  hygiene 
in  early  life  that  go  to  make  one  strong  have  also  the  advantage 
that  these  practices  become  life  habits  that  cannot  be  broken  with- 
out discomfort.  The  desire  for  healthy  exercise  becomes  a  kind 
of  hunger  of  the  body  that  must  be  satisfied. 

There  are  very  many  people  who  from  lack  of  early  physical 
perfection  live  always  on  a  lower  plane  than  would  otherwise 
have  been  the  case.  They  are  not  sick — they  are  simply  less 
alive  than  they  ought  to  be.  Their  physical  development  was 
never  properly  completed,  and  the  functions  of  the  body  have 
never  realized  their  full  capacity. 

All  the  achievement  of  men  and  women  is  based  largely  upon 
capacity  for  sustained  exertion.  To  be  capable  of  this,  one  needs 
a  body  that  from  proper  drill  in  the  formative  period  of  life  has 
the  habit  of  energetic  and  swift  response  to  demands.  A  poorly 
developed  body  means  less  work  and  an  inferior  quality  of  work, 
less  courage,  less  persistence.  It  means,  in  some  cases,  to  put 
among  the  common  places  a  career  that  with  robust  health  might 
have  risen  to  great  achievement. 

Boys  are  better  developed  than  girls  because  they  lead  more 
active  lives  than  girls.  There  is  no  reason  why  a  boy  should  be 
physically  more  active  than  a  girl.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
man  should  be  better  developed  physically  than  the  woman.  Our 
methods  should  produce  the  best  possible  development  of  both. 

The  animal  enjoyment  a  boy  finds  after  a  day  in  school  in 


II 

wild,  rough  play  puts  fresh  life  into  him  and  new  thoughts  into 
his  head,  while  the  girl,  early  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  decorum  and  with  the  ghost  of  propriety  ever  before 
her,  goes  home  quietly,  and  the  studies  of  the  day  still  recurring 
in  the  tired  brain  like  an  echo,  her  mind  is  occupied  by  them  in 
spite  of  herself.  Study  pursued  under  such  circumstances  may 
be  ruinously  harmful,  when  the  same  amount  might  do  little  or 
no  harm,  if  done  with  proper  regard  to  the  necessity  for  exercise 
and  diversion. 

There  is  very  much  in  the  life  of  young  women  of  the  present 
time  that  tends  to  arrest  the  development  and  result  in  lowering 
of  the  life  capacity.  They  get  through  girlhood  successfully,  but 
the  stress  of  married  life  or  independent  employment  is  too  much 
for  their  frail  bodies  and  they  become  invalids  or  semiinvalids, 
capable  of  enduring  little,  doing  little  or  enjoying  little,  and  spend 
their  lives  on  the  border  land  of  the  physically  necessitous. 

The  girls  of  the  present  day,  who  are  brought  up  under  more 
comfortable  conditions  than  their  grandmothers,  have  gained 
much,  no  doubt,  in  the  change  of  conditions ;  but  they  have  lost 
something,  in  that  in  many  homes  there  is  less  of  healthy  exercise, 
less  of  that  kind  of  work  that  developed  the  body  and  also  devel- 
oped simple  and  healthy  tastes.  There  is,  as  a  result  of  this, 
poorer  physical  development,  less  feeling  of  responsibility  in  the 
home  on  the  part  of  the  young  ladies,  and  not  so  great  a  sense  of 
duty.  When  every  member  of  the  family  had  every-day,  specific 
duties,  work  to  do  that  had  to  be  done,  work  that  exercised  the 
bod}'  as  well  as  the  moral  sense  in  discharging  a  duty,  such  life, 
dreary  and  harsh  as  it  sometimes  was,  and  often  barren  of  most 
of  those  things  that  we  regard  as  common  comforts,  had  at  least 
the  great  advantage  of  providing  work  that  furnished  physical 
exercise,  and  that  was  also  done  under  the  sense  of  obligation. 
There  is  a  moral  and  physical  healthfulness  in  such  a  life  that 
goes  to  the  making  of  strong  and  simple  characters  and  that  puts 
purity  of  blood  and  vigor  of  constitution  into  descendants. 

Many  women,  in  my  experience,  break  down  because,  or  partly 
because,  they  have  not  a  certain  kind  of  training  fitting  them  for 


12 

the  responsibilities  of  life.  No  young  woman  should  grow  up  to 
a  marriageable  age  without  having  been  initiated  gradually  into 
the  work  and  responsibilities  that  belong  to  a  wife  and  the  keeper 
of  a  home.  A  lack  of  this  kind  of  training  is  the  cause  of  much 
nervous  invalidism.  One  who  has  grown  up  without  proper  train- 
ing in  these  matters  is  much  more  liable  to  have  a  distaste  for 
such  duties  than  if  she  had  been  taught  from  girlhood  to  consider 
them  as  a  matter  of  course.  New  and  untried  duties  are  always 
hard,  and  they  are  doubly  hard  if  one  dislikes  them,  for  a  dis- 
taste for  work  involves  ruinous  friction.  The  number  of  young 
women  who  soon  after  marriage  break  down  from  the  unexpected 
strain  of  new  duties  is  very  large.  The  mother  of  a  young  woman 
who  had  become  a  nervous  invalid  within  two  years  after  marriage 
said  to  me  there  was  no  apparent  cause  for  her  daughter's  illness, 
as  she  had  been  shielded  from  everything  from  childhood.  This 
was  apparently  not  because  the  young  lady  was  delicate,  but  be- 
cause an  indulgent  and  unoccupied  mother  chose  to  keep  her 
daughter  in  the  condition  of  a  child.  The  real  cause  of  her  trouble 
was  plain  enough  ;  she  had  never  known  what  work  or  care  or 
responsibility  was  and  the  little  stress  of  caring  for  a  home  made 
an  invalid  of  her. 

One  may  well  ask  why  any  healthy  girl  should  be  shielded. 
What  she  needs  is  not  shielding  but  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
direction  in  work  that  tends  to  develop  a  sense  of  duty  and  an 
exercise  of  judgment.  What  is  a  home  for  to  a  young  woman,  if 
it  is  not  a  school  that  in  some  measure  anticipates  by  preparation 
the  later  and  larger  discipline  which  should  come  to  all,  a  school 
from  which  she  is  graduated  into  the  sober  and  exigent  realities 
of  womanhood. 

Why,  indeed,  should  any  one  be  shielded  ?  Were  Maria  Mitchell 
and  Lucretia  Mott  shielded  ?  Were  our  grandmothers,  who  lived 
simple  and  toilsome  lives,  prepared  therefor  by  being  shielded  ? 
Was  it  ever  the  case  anywhere  that  a  person  who  had  been  shielded 
grew  to  be  a  forceful  character  or  proved  a  success  in  presence  of 
the  swift  and  onerous  demands  of  life  ? 

Every  girl  should  at  least  be  prepared  for  the  eventualities  of 
married  life.  Not  all  women  marry,  but  no  woman  is  a  loser 


13 

who  has  the  training  that  prepares  her  for  all  possible  respon- 
sibilities of  womanhood.  Whatever  tends  to  develop  in  woman 
all  the  characteristics  of  womanhood  is  an  advantage  to  her. 
We  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  there  lies  at  the  basis  of  woman's 
nature  the  eternal  law  of  womanhood,  and  that  whatever  she  may 
do,  whatever  station  she  may  fill,  she  is  none  the  worse  but  in- 
finitely the  better  for  being  a  thorough  woman. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  happiness  depends  more  largely  upon 
health  than  people  know.  Whatever  the  causes  of  unhappiness 
may  be  in  general,  I  believe  that  imperfect  health,  not  that  which 
puts  one  to  bed,  but  that  of  low  vitality  and  sluggish  function 
which  makes  endurance  unreliable  and  the  performance  of  to- 
morrow uncertain,  this  kind  of  imperfect  health  is  chargeable 
with  much  of  the  unhappiness  that  there  is  in  the  world. 

With  a  desire  to  get  the  views  of  educators  and  physicians  on 
the  subject  of  the  life  and  health  of  American  girls,  I  recently 
addressed  the  following  question  to  20  physicians,  school-princi- 
pals and  teachers.  ' '  Do  you  believe  that  American  girls  of  this 
generation  will  be  physically  stronger  than  their  mothers  ?' ' 

I  have  only  space  to  quote  the  reply  of  Prof.  H.  E.  Kratz, 
Superintendent  of  the  Schools  of  Calumet,  Michigan.  Professor 
Kratz  is  an  educator  of  national  reputation,  one  of  those  who  had 
the  insight  to  recognize  early  the  primary  importance  of  the 
physical  side  of  the  life  of  school  children.  He  has  made  careful 
investigations  on  this  subject  and  has  written  articles  of  perma- 
nent value  in  regard  to  child  growth  and  health. 

He  says  :  ' '  Your  question  is  one  that  cannot  be  answered  off- 
hand, and  even  then  not  definitely  or  positively.  There  are  some 
things  that  would  indicate  that  the  girls  of  to-day  are  not  as 
strong,  physically,  as  their  mothers  were  at  their  age. 

"I  believe  there  is  a  growing  tendency  on  the  part  of  parents  in 
this  country  to  shield  their  girls  from  the  hardships  and  severe 
experiences  to  which  they  were  exposed.  A  mistaken  kindness 
seeks  to  protect  them  from  all  adverse  influences.  Of  course, 
strong  character  and  strong  bodies  are  not  as  readily  developed 
under  such  conditions.  I  believe  there  is  also  an  attitude  on  the 
part  of  the  boys  and  girls  to  demand  more  from  their  parents, 


H 

taking  it  as  their  right  to  escape  these  severer  experiences  of  life 
which  go  to  make  up  strong  men  and  women.  There  is,  therefore, 
a  tendency  to  hot-house  growth,  and  this  will  of  course  neither 
develop  strong  bodies  nor  strong  minds. 

"On  the  other  hand,  we  are  waking  up  more  to  the  need  of 
physical  training  in  the  public  schools,  particularly  in  the  cities. 
The  matter  is  in  its  infancy,  but  the  time  I  believe  is  not  far 
distant  when  our  high  schools  and  at  least  upper-grade  schools 
will  all  have  well-equipped  gymnasiums,  and  more  careful  attention 
will  be  paid  to  the  physical  development.  Quite  a  number  of  the 
best-equipped  high  schools  are  already  well  equipped  along  these 
lines,  but  the  great  mass  of  the  girls  and  boys  are  not  yet  pro- 
vided with  such  physical  training  as  they  need. 

"As  the  city  population  is  so  rapidly  increasing  in  proportion  to 
the  rural,  the  necessity  is  growing  greater  for  better  provision  in 
the  line  of  physical  training,  as  in  the  cities  the  opportunities  for 
physical  training  and  the  limited  number  of  duties  which  can  be 
imposed  upon  the  children  are  a  great  handicap. 

"The  universities,  as  you  rather  intimate,  are  making,  as  a  rule, 
excellent  provision  for  physical  training,  but  of  course  the  number 
of  girls  in  universities  is  small  as  compared  with  the  large  number 
elsewhere. 

"On  the  whole,  1  am  rather  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  girls 
of  to-day  are  not  as  strong  physically  as  their  mothers. ' ' ' 

The  overwrought  and  intense  manner  of  many  American  women 
is  partly  due,  I  suppose,  to  the  contagiousness  of  custom  ;  but  it 
is  also  due  to  jerky  and  imperfect  co-ordination  of  undeveloped 
muscles  and  oversensitive  nerve  centers.  Well-developed  and 
vigorous  nerve  centers  command  the  muscles  to  orderly,  smooth 
and  graceful  movement,  whereas  those  not  so  developed  leave  the 

1  Dr.  Mary  E.  B.  Ritter,  in  a  paper  read  before  the  California  State  Medical  Society  in 
1903.  gave  the  results  of  the  examination  of  660  Freshman  girls  at  the  University  of  the 
State  of  California,  at  Berkeley.  Of  this  number,  176  or  26*  3  per  cent,  are  subject  to  head- 
aches ;  193  or  29' <4  per  cent,  are  habitually  constipated ;  86  or  13  per  cent,  are  subject  to  in- 
digestion ;  3  or  1/1  per  cent,  had  denned  tuberculosis  ;  7  or  »/i0  P"  cent  had  goitre  ;  57  or  9 
per  cent,  were  markedly  anemic  ;  105  or  16  per  cent,  had  abnormal  heart  sounds  ;  62  or  9^1 
per  cent,  had  rapid  or  irregular  pulse ;  193  or  29'  4  were  subject  to  backaches ;  443  or 
67  per  cent,  were  subject  to  menstrual  disorders  ;  ioort'/i  per  cent,  gave  histories  of  having 
broken  down  in  grammar  or  high  school,  two  from  "  nervous  prostration."  In  contrast 
to  these  figures,  149  or  22*  lfl  per  cent,  reported  themselves  as  free  from  all  aches  or  pains  or 
'unctional  disturbances. 


.15 

muscles  to  ill-regulated  and  haphazard  action.  This  is  made 
worse  when  one  falls  into  the  too  common  American  habit  of 
fictitious  animation,  stilted  attitudes  of  mind  and  body,  and  arti- 
ficial and  fussy  manners  that  arouse  tense,  cramp-like  muscular 
states  that  are  wastefully  exhausting,  so  that  gripped  hands, 
scowling  features,  anxious  eyes,  irregular  movements  leak  away 
the  energy  as  fast  as  it  accumulates.  Many  women  seem  to  think 
that  interest  calls  for  a  display  of  intensity,  eagerness,  an  affecta- 
tion of  excitement.  They  are  vastly  mistaken.  Healthy  interest 
is  quiet-mannered  ;  it  is  low- voiced  ;  it  demands  no  fuss ;  it  in- 
volves no  strain. 

Our  intense  and  hurried  American  life  which  indicates  mental 
tension  and  unhealthy  excitement  can  be  cured  by  cultivating 
composure  and  stopping  our  high-pressure  methods  of  doing 
things.  The  greatest  need  for  healthy  human  lives  is  plain, 
•simple,  and  homely  interests.  Those  who  do  not  have  them  lack 
an  essential  condition  of  sound  character. 

The  interests  of  American  women  are  too  often  mere  excite- 
ments, and  these  are  always  unhealthy.  They  are  unfavorable 
to  quiet  and  systematic  living  and  lead  to  selfishness  and  discontent. 
I  believe  much  of  the  poor  health  of  women  is  due  to  their  habits 
of  excitement.  They  lose  thereby  the  nack  of  taking  things  with 
composure  and  self-restraint ;  the  most  ordinary  occurrences  stir 
up  an  intensity  of  feeling  and  a  certain  amount  of  mental  tension 
that  are  uncalled  for  and  are  unhealthy.  The  woman  who  is 
thoroughly  healthy  lives  a  frictionless  and  a  fuller  life ;  she  is 
cheerful,  she  is  satisfied  with  those  simple  and  homely  things 
upon  which  the  most  of  happiness  and  the  healthier  happiness 
depends.  She  is  more  charitable,  she  has  more  faith  in  life  and 
more  confidence  in  human  nature.  She  does  not  ' '  endlessly 
question  whether  she  has  done  just  the  right  thing."  She  does 
not  make  her  consciousness  a  reception  hospital  for  wounded  feel- 
ings, and  in  seeing  things  in  just  proportion  she  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  occurrences  of  moment  and  the  trivial  incidents  of  life. 

We  Americans,  both  men  and  women,  have  too  much  self- 
consciousness  ;  we  are  overanxious  about  appearances  and  effects; 
our  dash  and  intensity  and  eagerness  are  artificial  and  wasteful. 


i6 

Healthy-mindedness  is  outward-mindedness;  it  is  forgetful  of  self 
in  a  quiet  interest  in  things  to  be  quietly  done.  It  means  that 
calmness,  not  excitement,  indicates  strength  ;  that  force  of  char- 
acter is  not  shown  by  haste,  but  rather  by  deliberateness ;  not  how 
speedy,  but  how  careful ;  not  how  much,  but  how  well. 

There  is  too  much  eagerness  and  fussy  restlessness  in  our  life. 
Expression  is  entirely  out  of  proportion  to  impression.  Though 
the  greater  part  of  life  consists  in  doing  something,  it  does  not 
follow  that  we  should  be  forever  on  the  run.  The  work  of  life  is 
not  wholly  in  action.  Self-restraint,  calmness,  a  certain  repose 
have  a  large  share  in  the  enterprise. 

In  all  physiologic  processes,  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  energy 
put  by  as  a  reserve.  If  this  were  not  so,  every  action  or  every 
thought  would  leave  us  bankrupt  of  vitality.  If  we  are  to  have 
proper  self -direction  and  concentration  of  effort,  there  must  be 
structures  and  centers  that  are  resting,  having  reserves  of  unused 
energy.  Through  this  comes  self-direction  and  restraint  of  ten- 
dencies and  impulses.  In  the  healthy  and  well-developed  body, 
unconscious  restraints  are  always  being  applied  in  order  that 
irregular  action  and  waste  be  prevented.  Those  who  fail  here 
wear  too  much  expression  in  their  faces,  and  are  restless  and 
anxious-minded.  They  scatter  their  energies  in  useless  muscular 
tensions  and  in  ill-regulation  of  thought  and  action.  One  often 
sees  in  plain  country  folk  a  calmness  of  expression  and  a  quiet 
manner  that  is  in  beautiful  and  restful  contrast  to  the  knit  brows 
and  eager  manner  of  the  city  resident. 

To  insist  upon  the  completest  womanhood  is  not  to  demand 
that  every  woman  should  marry.  The  idea  that  woman's  only 
function  was  that  of  reproduction  was  primitive  ;  it  was  a  belated 
survival  of  the  period  of  the  tent  and  the  war  club.  There  are 
other  things  for  many  women  besides  marriage  and  maternity. 

There  is  no  danger  of  race  extinction  ;  Nature  has  taken  out 
insurance  against  that.  The  problem  is  not  to  get  more  people — 
it  is  rather  to  improve  those  we  have,  and  leave  room  also  for 
those  who  come  after  us  to  live  better  and  ampler  lives.  The  cry 
for  more  people  and  dense  populations  is  animal  and  material. 
Is  not  the  struggle  already  hard  enough  and  bitter  enough  ?  Do 
we  want  more  of  the  necessitous  ;  more  mothers  weary  and  worn 


with  grinding  toil,  more  stunted  children,  more  fathers  heartsick 
and  hopeless  with  the  fight  of  poverty  ?  It  will,  however,  always 
remain  true  that  the  one,  best  work  for  most  women  will  be  in  the 
home,  where  as  wives  and  mothers  they  will  have  the  making  of 
men  and  the  shaping  of  men's  destiny.  Though  there  are  other 
worthy  aspirations  that  woman  may  have,  there  are  none  higher 
than  this.  No  oratory  that  she  can  pronounce,  no  pictures  that 
she  can  paint,  and  no  books  that  she  can  write,  exceed  in  worth 
to  the  world  a  life  like  this.  By  leaving  her  impress  upon  her 
children,  she  lives  again  in  them  and  in  their  descendants,  and  in 
them  too  she  carries  forward  the  ideals,  and  perpetuates  the  great 
traditions  of  the  race. 


140243 


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A    001  358  084    o 


